


Vicious Cycle

by YumeArashi



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Canon, Disillusionment, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YumeArashi/pseuds/YumeArashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When vengeance caught up with Ezio, it took a form he had not expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vicious Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> Set late in AC2

Ezio was crouching on the roof of a Florentine home when instinct, honed from long years of experience, warned him the attack was coming.  He dodged to one side of the sword swipe and turned to face his attacker.

It was neither a guard nor Templar, but a boy in ordinary working clothes - perhaps the same age Ezio had been when he’d taken up his assassin’s robes.  His grip on the sword was awkward and unsteady, but his eyes burned with fierce determination, and Ezio had not survived all these years by underestimating his opponents.

He circled away from the roof’s edge, warily watching the boy.  “Well now, that wasn’t too honorable, was it?”

“Honor?” the boy spat.  “You have no right to speak of honor, Ezio Auditore!”

“You know my name.”  Ezio was a little surprised.  He’d been well known enough at first, but as time had passed and his family had been forgotten, the wanted posters and town criers had begun referring to him simply as ‘the assassin’.  Perhaps it was the beard. 

“How could I ever forget it?  You shouted it to the world when you murdered my father - as if you were proud of what you’d done!” he snarled.

Ezio blinked in surprise.  There was only one time he’d done that, and that felt like forever ago.  “Alberti?” he asked incredulously.

“Why so surprised, assassin?  Did you never think that the men you murder have families?  That someone might one day come looking to avenge a father, brother, or uncle lost to your blades?  Such arrogance,” he sneered, and turned Ezio’s long-ago words back on him.  “The Alberti are not dead!  I’m still here - me, Marco Alberti!  And I will kill you or die trying.”

Ezio shook his head.  “You are a child still.  I will not kill you.”

“Oh, _now_ your conscience pricks you?” the boy - Marco - scoffed.  “It was not enough that my father was betrayed by yours, you then murdered him for merely seeing justice done?”

“Your father was not the one betrayed,” Ezio said quietly.  He could not blame the boy from growing up believing what all Florence thought about his father’s death.  “The night before the trial, I myself delivered into his own hands documents proving my family’s innocence.  The same documents my father asked for at his trial, and that yours denied all knowledge of.  Your father pronounced a death sentence on my innocent family.”

“You lie,” the boy spat.

“Were you given your father’s effects?  He did not have those documents on him when he died, it is likely they are still among his things.  Proof of what really happened that day.”

Marco cried out in rage and sprang at Ezio.  The assassin caught the blade in a mailed fist and wrenched it out of the boy’s grasp, tossing it over the roof’s edge.  “If you want your vengeance, then you are welcome to try - but if you want the truth, look and see for yourself,” he told him before slipping away into the lengthening shadows.

 

* * *

 

It was a few weeks later when Ezio, stalking along an alley, heard his name yelled in anger.  He turned around with a sigh, preparing to meet his nemesis.  Marco was unarmed this time, flying at Ezio with his fists, and Ezio was startled to see that the boy wept.  He allowed Marco to pummel him ineffectually - with Ezio’s armor, the blows probably hurt Marco more than him - until the boy’s strength and anger gave out. 

Ezio caught Marco as he slumped to the ground, crying and still raging.  “Why did you not kill me?” he demanded.  “I loved my father!  I grew up thinking he was the greatest man who ever lived!  Why did you have to take that away from me?  I would rather have died!  I hate you!”

_So he found the documents_ , Ezio thought wearily as he held the grieving boy.  Perhaps it had been wrong to tell him the truth.  Perhaps the son should have remained ignorant of the sins of his father, and been allowed to cherish his vengeance.  “He did it for you,” he said gently.  “His last words were, ‘you would have done the same to save the ones you love’.”

“I don’t want to hear that from his killer,” Marco sniffled, mumbling into Ezio’s shoulder.

“No one else witnessed those words.  And even if you would not hear them from me, you deserved to hear them.”

“I still hate you.”

“I know.  I would not take that away from you.”

Marco fell silent, making no move to pull away, and Ezio continued to hold him, offering what cold comfort he could.

The world had never weighed heavier on his shoulders.


End file.
